Reunited: Garrus
by basteffect
Summary: This story follows the plot of Mass Effect 2 and explores the growing relationship between FemShep and Garrus Vakarian as they seek to discover why human colonies are disappearing. I rated this M for language and sexual content in later chapters. I am not a professional writer or editor so any help with the story would be appreciated!
1. Prologue

**Reunited: Garrus**

 **By basteffect**

 **A/N: This is my take on my femshep and garrus v. as they meet again in ME2. This first part is the prologue for those who haven't followed the story or are just introduced to this magnificent series of games and books. It follows the gameline pretty closely. Any reviews/betas would be extremely helpful. I love Garrus and had so much fun with the game romance with him, that I will be playing again with him soon ;). Thank you to EA and Bioware for the wonderful game that has sparked so many cool stories and ideas!  
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* * *

 **Prologue**

Life was a bitch, and then you die. If you are very lucky, you get restored back to life. If you are very unlucky, you get restored back to life to fight the biggest badass threat to the entire galaxy with a group of fanatical terrorists. Commander Shepherd was definitely not lucky.

In 2183, Commander Sabria Shepard was inducted into a prestigious select group called the Spectres. They were the elite of the elite. Assassins, hardasses, killers, bodyguards, vanguards, investigators; you name it. They did it. They were the front line defense against major threats. They went out to find the threats and eliminate them before they became a bigger problem. No human had ever made it into their ranks until the rogue spectre, Saren, went AWOL after being mind-fucked by the intergalactic baddie Sovereign. Then the council decided this would be a great induction mission for Shepherd. She was told to find and apprehend Saren and discover why he has betrayed them. Sure. No problemo.

Turns out, Saren was manipulated or indoctrinated by Sovereign, an unknown species of super advanced synthetic organism that had been acting as a sleeper agent and decided it was time for his kind to return and wipe clean the galaxy in what they called a "harvest". After attacking and taking over the capital of the galaxy, the Citadel, Saren, Sovereign and his army of AI machines called the Geth, were minutes away from opening the portal that would allow Sovereign's fleet, the Reapers, to be unleashed upon all organics when Commander Shepherd and two of her crew, Lt. Kaiden Alenko and C-Sec Officer Garrus Vakarian put the kibosh on their plan. Shepherd and her crew managed to take down the indoctrinated spectre Saren who was hell bent on saving the galaxy by helping its' enemies destroy it. Then she had to make the tough call of either saving the council by giving the order for the human Alliance fleet to attack Sovereign with the primary focus of ensuring the safety of the council's flag ship the Destiny, or ordering the Alliance to focus only on Sovereign.

Shepherd knew that for humanity to find a place in this new era, they would need a grateful council on their side so she issued the command to save the Destiny. Doing so, cost humanity the lives of thousands of soldiers and personnel and although Sovereign was defeated and humanity earned a seat on the galactic council, privately Shepherd wondered if the sacrifice of so many was worth one politicians seat. She hoped so because she knew the Reapers weren't done. They were still coming. It might take a little longer for them to find a way through but these were machines that had conducted at least one harvest that they knew of 50,000 years ago during the Prothean era where the most advanced organic species of that time disappeared almost without a trace. To prevent that from happening again, Shepherd was willing to do much, sacrifice much to prevent the complete annihilation of her species and all the other new species that her own people had just begun to learn about.

Meanwhile the council was doing their normal political bullshit and sticking their heads in the sand and denying the existence of the Reapers. Shepherd understood they didn't want to panic people in thinking the end of their worlds were approaching but outright denying it and making no preparations for what was coming was asking for an outright ass whooping which Shepherd would be happy to deliver. Her mentor Captain David Anderson convinced the council that Commander Shepherd was best needed out searching for any Geth resistance. Captain Anderson had given Shepard her first solo command of her career when he placed the Normandy, a human-turian collaboration in advanced spaceflight, in her hands to chase after Saren. Shepard was hell of a commander and a diplomat but when billions of lives were at stake her back of diplomacy was getting pretty light. He told her to go out looking for the Geth because they both knew that if she runs into Geth, the probability of finding information on the Reapers was high. He would remain behind on the Citadel and Earth and keep working on the Council and the Alliance and trying to convince them that the Reapers were a valid threat and that preparations needed to be made. He would also be watching for any signs of indoctrination in the population. Shepherd knew she was doing no good where she was. She gathered her crew to return to the Normandy and according to a popular old earth tv series, headed out into the last frontier! And after months of futile searching, the Normandy found more than it had bargained for.

Attacked by an unidentified ship, the Normandy SR-1 was destroyed. The majority of the crew escaped in the lifepods but some were killed in the preceding blasts. The ship's pilot, Jeff Moreau aka Joker, refused to leave his baby. Shepherd ordered Garrus to get everybody in the life pods while she went to Joker. Garrus at first refused but Turians are taught from the womb to never disobey a direct order from their superior so he left her to begin the evacuation protocol. Shepherd moved up the bridge to the deck and managed to talk some sanity into Joker. As they moved to the foreward lifepod, a laser blast from attacking ship threw Shepherd back into the rapidly deteriorating navigational room. She hit the emergency release button for the lifepod as she felt the Normandy give a giant shutter and then she was suddenly ripped away and thrown out into the emptiness of space. As she dropped towards the outer atmosphere of a nearby planetoid, she could feel the air inside her helmet begin to heat up. She felt back and realized her helmet's pressure and oxygen tubing had been damaged thanks to thrown shrapnel from the Normandy. As her lungs turned to fire and she struggled with her helmet she began to fall closer to the planetoid and then everything faded to darkness.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

 **Omega: 2 Years Later**

"Commander?"

"What is it Joker?" Shepard asked as she reviewed the dossiers that had been given to her by the Illusive Man.

"We're coming up on Omega. ETA 30 minutes."

"Understood. Have Miranda and Za-eed meet me at the shuttle level in 20."

"Roger that Commander".

Shepard stood from her desk after taking one last glance through the dossier on her terminal screen. She went over to the encasement that held her armor and stripped down to her black boy shorts and mid-riff tank top. Alliance soldiers had their choice of underwear. She had chosen the boy shorts after going through her first mission with a wedgie. Ugh. Definitely never wearing bikini underwear on a mission again. Shepard turned to the red and gold Inferno Armor that Cerberus had given her. As she began to pull on the boots and greaves she marveled again at how light and yet strong body armor had become since she had died. Her breath caught in her throat and she paused in the middle of tightening the clasp on her left boot. It still hit her sometimes, like a shot to the chest. She had died.

Shepard sat up slowly and stared down at her hands as they lay on her knees. She flexed the fingers a bit and turned her hands, marveling at the knowledge that two years ago she had been killed after her ship the Normandy SR-1 had been turned into a cube of swiss cheese by an unknown enemy ship. She had been spaced and her oxygen supply had caught on fire in the planets' atmosphere as she fell to the surface. She had burned alive and was thought dead by any and all who knew her. She had no real memories of dying. She remembered the sensation of trying to breathe air so hot that it burned her throat and then nothing. Yet here she was, alive, gearing up to go against another unknown enemy with little to no support from her superiors. Again.

She looked up into the mirror on the inside of the encasement door and stared at a face that once she had known every inch of, every dimple, every scar, and yet now she didn't. Sometimes it was like a stranger that looked back at her. Shepard stood and moved to the mirror to look more closely. Blood red hair pulled into a tight bun at the back of her head. Pale blue-gray eyes that shimmered like crystals, or so one ex-boyfriend had told her before he became an ex. Her full pouty lips were a soft rose color that she had always considered one of her worst features. Having a superior officer who was giving her an ass-chewing suddenly stutter because he got caught staring at her lips was awkward to say the least. That had happened more than a handful of times. She hadn't been sure what was going on until she had walked past the officers mess hall and heard her sergeant complaining of being unable to "Properly scare the shit out Shepard because her damn lips keep ambushing him." The other sergeants had laughingly agreed and Shepard had continued past to her duty station trying to keep the blush off of her but thanks to being a red head, even with golden skin, the blush had shown. Her station partner, McKindrick had spent all night teasing her trying to worm why she was blushing out of Shepard.

She understood logically why she didn't see the face as hers. Since Cerberus had to rebuild her from scratch, the marks from her former life were gone. Like the scar from where as a toddler she had fallen and hit her head on the wood coffee table in her home on Mindoir. She used to stare at that little scar that had resided at her hairline above her left eyebrow whenever she had gotten homesick or the memories of their murders rose to the forefront. No more than an inch long and seen only in certain light or as an extra crease when she raised her eyebrows, but not anymore.

The scar across her left upper lip from the thresher maw attack on Acuze was gone also. That mark had been a reminder that she had lived when over 50 of her squad mates had died in that attack. That attack had been an experiment by Cerberus scientists to test the toxicity of the acid that the thresher maw spits to incapacitate its victims. She had learned several years ago that only one other member of her squad had lived. Corporal Toombs. He had been hit by the acid and studied and dissected by the scientists to test the acids effect on human physiology and biotics. Shepard had prevented Toombs from killing the last of the scientists and along with Admiral Hackett had managed to get Toombs into therapy and he had been recovering well, the last she had heard. Ironically, two plus years later, she was working with Cerberus scientists and the Illusive Man to try and stop the Collectors.

"That's what happens when you die Shepard." Said the lips in the mirror as the corners tilted up into a mocking smile. The eyes became a flat empty wasteland as Shepard remembered waking in a Cerberus lab as enemies again tried to kill her. She had worked with Cerberus agents Jacob and Miranda to escape the space station and had met with the Illusive Man via 3D holographic display at a secure base in another sector of that system . Shepard had met with him because he had spent billions of credits resurrecting her and she wanted to know why. Anybody would be curious, she was sure. After all, she was just one soldier. Why spend billions on her when you could build your own army?

She didn't care for Cerberus. They were a humans first group that wasn't picky about how they got their results. The ends justified the means should be Cerberus motto. When the Illusive Man had proposed a union to fight an unknown enemy who was kidnapping human colonists and leaving no traces of their purpose or identification, Shepard had been tempted to tell him to fuck off. Cerberus had killed General Haroku 3 years ago after they had killed his special ops squad after luring them to a thresher maw nest. Shepard hadn't known Haroku long, but he was Alliance, and he had fought for his squad to his last breath. That had been enough to earn her support. Now here the Illusive Man was, asking for her help in fighting a war. If it had been anything else…Shepard gave her body an allover shake to rid itself of her thoughts and turned back to her armor. She needed to get ready to meet with her team.

Quickly she pulled on the rest of the light armor that would give her a little extra for her tech and weapon damage and give her a boost of speed for sprinting. She flexed and stretched in the armor to make sure it had settled into place correctly and then snapped her chosen weapons into place. The M-5 Phalanx heavy pistol, the Eviscerater shotgun, and the Tempest SMG went into their slots. These were all pretty good guns and as a vanguard class they worked best with her skillset and biotics. They were heading to Omega so weapons were a requirement not a suggestion.

The worst cesspool of lost souls in the galaxy, Omega was full of mercs, drugs, sex, black market goods, and enough firepower to start a war with the gods. Shepard turned to her terminal to take one last look at the dossier of the first applicant, although he didn't know he had applied yet, of the suicide squad she was leading.

Shepard walked out of her cabin and to the elevator and pushed the button for the shuttle bay. As the elevator dropped, she reviewed what she knew of Archangel, the dossier she was seeking here on Omega. The file had been damn thin. Archangel was a Turian with military grade sniper skills that appeared on the grid only a couple of months ago. He was a sniper that had formed his own team, who were apparently damn loyal to him, and had begun playing _Kill a Merc_ with the local mercenary bands on Omega ever since. What his history was or reasons for going after the mercs were unknown. What little info she had on him was sketchy and filled with huge gaps, but Shepard had worked with less before and had gotten the job done. As she stepped out of the elevator on the bridge level and walked past personnel, she saw Miranda and Za-eed waiting for her at the airlock door.

Miranda Lawson was a Cerberus Lieutenant and groupie. She had been in charge of Project Lazarus whose sole purpose was putting Commander Shepard back together again. Two years of hard for work for Miranda and two years of laying on her back for Shepard and walla! She was a new and improved version of herself with synthetic implants and everything, yippee! Miranda was a genetically engineered, gorgeous piece of flesh, and she had no trouble telling people that (over and over again), but she could definitely handle herself in a firefight and was dedicated to the successful completion of their mission. She withheld her opinion of Shepards capabilities because she knew that Shepard couldn't be trusted to do what's best for Cerberus. Shepard didn't hold that against Miranda. She completely understood her position, but it just put Miranda on her watch list.

Za-eed Messini was a different kettle of hanar. He was a mercenary that the Illusive Man had spent a bundle on to get him on the team. Za-eed didn't like the Alliance or Cerberus which meant he and Shepard trusted each other just about as much as one of them could lift the Normandy single-handedly. He was capable, Shepard knew that. He was an older merc, but still moving well. The fact that he had survived as long as he had said something about his skills.

As Shepard moved into the airlock to go through depressurization and sterilization before stepping onto Omega, she muttered curses to herself. Here she fucking was, going onto fucking Omega, with fucking Cerberus and a mercenary at her back, that she didn't trust and didn't trust her, to get another fucking mercenary for another fucking suicide mission. As the doors opened and she stepped onto Omega, she sighed to herself. Sometimes it just didn't pay to come back from the dead. There were way too many headaches.


	3. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

She watched the merc in front of her fly back into a shipping container that had been left haphazardly on the warehouse floor. She saw the impact of the bullet tearing through his barriers and armor. Easy pickings for Shepard as she finished him off. Nine mercs were left out of the original group. She and her team were coming up from behind and were considered part of the merc infiltration team, so the mercs never knew what hit them. It was like a count down…4…3…2…1 and then none. She couldn't take credit for more than three though. Whoever this Archangel was, he was a hell of a shot. They were over 1000 meters away from his nest and to take out this many mercs with barriers and shields who were firing back at him was pretty damn impressive. Looking at the dozens of bodies littering the bridge, Shepard could see now why the merc bands were working together. Even her two squad mates, Miranda and Za-eed, didn't have a chance to do more than take out two or three before all they had left to do was to advance to their primary target. Archangel.

Mercenary? Do-gooder? Whoever he was, he had pissed off the bad-asses of Omega. Big time. Now three of the major merc groups in the galaxy, the Blood Pack, the Eclipse and the Blue Suns were gunning for him and working together to do it, which was pretty damn impressive. It told her that they knew that individually they couldn't take Archangel down which seriously increased his threat status while making them a laughingstock.

Was this really somebody she wanted on her team? Well she couldn't afford to be picky she thought as she stepped around a merc with a new hole in her head. No, she couldn't. Not now. Dead two years and everybody moved on. It was still a bit difficult to wrap her head around. She had been clinically dead, for two years. She knew logically that her old team had to move on with their lives when she died, but still…hell. What was done was done.

Shepard had never really cared for mercenaries. To go into battle with someone you had to trust that they had your back, as you had theirs. That they wouldn't run or, her lip twitched, suddenly switch sides. Her mouth tipped into a self-depreciating smirk as she acknowledged her own hypocrisy. Her reservations about this new recruit were typical of an Alliance soldier because that is what she was. What she would always be. Working with Cerberus didn't change that. Even dying, hadn't changed that. But she needed to find the Collector's and destroy them. In order to do that with no help from the Alliance, was forcing her to think way outside her box.

Her box had been nice. She had liked her box damn it. But Saren, Sovereign and the discovery of the Reapers heralding Armageddon had blown that stability all to hell. Then her dying and losing her allies had re-enforced the understanding that safety came at a price. Apparently it was one she was willing to pay because here she was on fucking Omega. A former Alliance soldier, commendations on her chest for valor above terms of service, now surrounded by the dregs of races whose discovery had blown apart humanity's own box 29 years ago. Moving to try and recruit for a check "yes" suicide mission, another dreg of this wasteland that was filled with souls bought and sold every day.

Great. Shepard thought. I'm so damn cheerful right now, I could right greeting cards. But she was there to do a job, and she would do it. No matter how many mercenaries she had to take down and no matter that she didn't completely trust those following her lead. She was here for Archangel. She signaled for her team to move up the steps and down the corridor to the room where Archangel waited. She would bag him, tag him, and take him on this suicide mission even if it killed him or her…again. Lives depended upon that. On her, and as her old commander Captain Anderson, once threw at her, determination was her greatest strength… and weakness.

She and her team moved slowly into the room, weapons at the ready in case Archangel was a shoot first, ask questions later kind of guy. What she saw, was a Turian staring down the scope of a sniper rifle, facing away from them. As though they were no threat. Okay this was not something she was used to, she admitted to herself. Now a days, when she walked into a room even with her weapons put up, respect and a healthy dose of fear was apparent.

"Archangel?" she asked. Her voice echoed strangely in the warehouse. All was quiet. The Turian moved slightly. Never taking his eye from his scope, his off-hand showed us a single digit. And then the quiet was broken by a single shot and a lone mercenary that had been hiding behind a column downstairs kneeled on the floor, and then face-planted. Gray matter, dripped from the hole that now graced his head.

"Think we could get his share?" Za-eed drawled in his low country Aussie accent. Shepard could tell he was asking seriously. She shook her head. "Damn."

The Turian, decked out in blue armor with silver borders turned towards them, his movements slow and measured. Shepard could see the weariness in his body as he used his rifle as a lever to rise from the hard floor. Tucking his rifle under his arm, he reached up and removed his helmet as he moved to take a seat on the back of a chair.

"Shepard. I thought you were dead."

Shepard felt her heart beat fully since her re-birth. Her full pink lips moved into a delighted smile as she took in the gray-blue spikes that led down to laser light blue eyes that zeroed in on her. The tactical monocle over the turian's left eye was a welcome and comforting site. Always present, even from birth, the turian had once mocked, the monocle signaled the constant state of readiness and the willingness to shoot a target at 1500 meters on the fly. Shepard's eyes followed the turian's face down to the navy blue clan markings that ran over the turian's mandibles down to the fringes that dropped from his jaw, at the corners of his chin. She felt her smile widen into a grin.

"Garrus!" Shepard's head went back and she laughed. She threw her arms wide and stepped towards him. "What the hell are you doing here?"


	4. Chapter 3 You're alive?

**Chapter 3**

Garrus, looked in stunned disbelief at the slight figure of a woman who he had followed into hell and who was supposed to be dead. A leader who had shown him what honor and the willingness to give everything to a cause could do. Commander Shepard had shown him through actions and words, when to follow the rules and when to bend or even break them. Rules had never been his thing. They had been his father's textbook, but Garrus found them too constricting, especially when they got in the way of justice. It was simple to him. You did something wrong, you paid the price and he would help with that. But the rules, represented by the endless rolls of red tape had hampered him as a C-Sec agent at the Citadel. Justice was rarely found there. But here in Omega he had found, what he hoped would be a reason to live. A reason to fight against the dark. Because his reason, his light, had gone out 2 years ago and he had searched desperately for something to replace it or let him follow into the void.

Now, hearing that low laugh and throaty voice, again, was like seeing the sun rise for the first time in two years. He had new purpose and she was standing right in front of him. The pink scars marking her pristine cheeks were new but the pale silver eyes and the blood-red hair pulled into a tight…bun, he think the humans called it, were right out of his memories, and if he was honest, his dreams. But the people behind her were new, strangers, unknown, and Cerberus. Discression, he thought. At least until they were alone and then he was going to ask her what the fuck was going on.

"Target practice." Garrus quipped. "I have to keep my skills up you know? And the Spirits know there are plenty of targets on Omega." He smiled tiredly at her and watched concern wash over her face.

"You okay?" she asked.

"Yeah. It's just nice to see a friendly face." He answered. He watched as the concern in her eyes changed into determination. Before he had seen her face in his scope, he had felt his time ticking away with each bullet. He was one of the best snipers in the galaxy. He'd been trained by the Turian army, the most respected military in the galaxy, and had been honed in the fight against the traitor Saren. But even as he had made this stand and had whittled down his enemies here on Omega, his energy had been whittled down as well. He was getting tired. Too little sleep, food and constantly on the alert for the next push from the mercs, had worn on him. He had known that he wouldn't be able to last much longer.

He had watched the next bullet seekers crawling over the containers blocking the far end of the bridge, and had readied his sniper rifle, settling into what he does best, killing at a distance. He had looked through the scope with determination but little hope. He counted his targets, watching their movements, adjusting his future shot to be special for each of them, and then her face had entered his scope.

The silver flash of her eyes, soft hollows of her cheeks and the delicate rose pink curves of her lips, caused his rifle arm to stutter and his breath to catch. He knew each of those curves. He had memorized them and relived them every night since he had first met her. And then they were gone, forever he had thought. Now here they were. His favorite parts of a woman who he respected above anyone else. Alive and in his sniper scope. A hallucination, he had thought, from lack of sleep and food. He had closed his eyes tightly, taken a breath, and looked again. There she was. Weapon drawn, following behind mercenaries, all of them hired to kill him. Even her? No. Her eyes would flick up to his location but her main focus was on the mercs in front of her. She was tracking them. Hope rose in his chest and he caught his second…okay well probably his fifty-second wind. Quickly, he moved his scope to the two that followed her. Cerberus. He would take care of them first before they were a threat to her. His finger tightened on his trigger. Wait. They were with her. He could tell in the way they kept close to her in a loose squad formation, taking their cues from her but leaving open lines of site to the mercenaries they were hunting. Targeting the first merc he had scoped, he pulled the trigger. Kill now, questions later, and Spirits knew he had a hell of a lot of questions.

Looking at her smiling at him now, he knew the questions had to wait. If they planned on getting out of this alive, they would need to move quickly. He saw her lips quirk up at the tips and knew she had found amusement in something. "Archangel? Since when did you start calling yourself that?" The laughter in her voice made him smile in return and he shrugged with some embarrassment. "A title given to me by the people of Omega for, ah, all of my good deeds. But please," he coughed. "To you, I am just Garrus."

"What are you doing on Omega? What happened with your C-Sec job?" Shepard asked.

"After you, well, died…" he gazed into the distance, "the rest of the surviving crew split up and went our separate ways. I went back to C-Sec to try to help, but there wasn't anywhere really for my brand of help. Everything was in chaos as everyone worked to re-build the Citadel. The council and my superiors didn't want to believe or hear anything about the Reapers. They pretended that Sovereign and Saren were aberrations and that there was no Reaper threat." He chuckled without humor. "They said you had deluded yourself and us into believing that a galactic extinction was coming. After a while I got tired of their bull shit and headed out looking for a place that I could do some good. I found my way to Omega and I began cleaning house. Along the way, I formed a squad that helped me with giving the people of Omega a sense of safety. When the local merc bands kicked an innocent, we kicked back."

Shepard looked around at the location for his final stand. The second floor office area was in a loft that opened over the main warehouse floor. There were windows in the warehouse walls that opened to the outside on the north and west sides. It had several tactical advantages. Open view to targets below and only one way in, down a long hallway and through a door that could be sealed at a moment's notice. "How did you end up here?"

He looked back towards the bridge and shook his head. "Apparently I pissed off some of the local merc bands here in Omega. They killed my team and I knew they would be coming after me. I set up in here, locked down all the entrances leaving that bridge as the only way in. And I've just been playing my favorite game of 'shoot the pyjaks' for the past couple of days as they wander into my scope." He laughed tiredly.

Shepard rotated her left shoulder and stretched slightly. "You nailed me good a couple of times by the way."

"Concussive shots only. Didn't want the mercs getting any ideas." Garrus said.

She gave him an impassive and disbelieving stare. "Uh-huh."

"What?" He asked innocently. She just looked at him in silence. Garrus sighed "If I had wanted to do more than take your shields down, then I would have done it. You were taking your sweet time getting here. I needed to get you moving." He stood, stretching out muscles that had become tired and cramped.

Turning towards the balcony over-looking the bridge he said quietly. "Do you know what I was thinking when I saw yet another squad of mercs moving out onto the bridge? As I moved to start picking them off, I thought back to the crazy ass missions you used to send us on. The Rachni Queen. The Thorian. Ugh. That thing still freaks me out by the way. I started wishing I had the team…that I had you… to watch my back, like in the old days. And then there you were. In my scope and following a bunch of mercs sent to kill me." He turned and gazed upon her for a few moments "What the hell -?" He shook his head. "No. Questions will have to wait. We need to find a way out of here. With only myself, there was no chance of escaping. But with you three, we just might make it out of here alive."


	5. Chapter 4 The Bridge

**Chapter 4 The Bridge**

Shepard moved up next to him at the balcony wall and looked out over the bridge. Garrus motioned toward the mechs that were climbing over the short wall of containers that the mercs had set up as protection when they first launched their assault against Archangel.

"Looks like company is coming. Mechs. Probably Eclipse. Maybe another scouting party. Damn and I forgot to bring the cookies. " He said as he gazed down his scope at the thin but deadly machines making their way across the bridge. He handed his rifle over to Shepard, something he would do for no one else. Giving up his rifle was like was like a Salarian giving up his chemistry set. Not happening. Except for her. "Take a look. See what you think."

Shepard took the rifle, handling it with a casual yet careful efficiency that spoke of her familiarity with such weapons but also her understanding of the trust he had placed in her. Sighting down the scope 1000 plus meters off, she watched as six armed mechs began marching across the bridge.

Mechs were machines designed as labor bots but could also be used as a private army. Something she and Garrus were familiar with. On a previous mission a computer virus had corrupted a whole warehouse of mechs that she and her team had to sort out. None of the scientist or workers had survived the slaughter. Tali, her Quarian tech master, had discovered that the virus had been planted by a rival company hoping to take over a larger portion of the mech trade. She and her team had dealt with the mechs, and the council had dealt with the rival company. Fines and lost resources had been levied against them. Not punishment enough for the lives lost at that facility, but that hadn't been her call to make. Now she focused on one of the copper-toned mechs and pulled the trigger and watched in the scope as the mechs' head disappeared, the body staggered and then dropped, sparks flying from the decapitated wires.

She turned to Garrus, handing his rifle back to him and smirked. "Yep. One less though." He rolled his eyes at her. They had been in minor competition with each other since they had met on who was the best sniper. Garrus claimed he was an artist with his weapon while she was a slam-bam thank you sir kind of soldier. On their first mission together in Therum, he had told her that she was more of a close encounter type of soldier and needed to leave the distance killing to those far more skilled than her. In response she had raised her rifle and had taken out a Cannibal, a synthetic-organic piece of meat and robotics that absorbed the remains of those fallen around it, thus re-building itself. She fired one shot at 1900 meters and they watched the Cannibal explode. Turning to the Turian C-Sec agent that had joined her crew to try and stop Saren, raised her eyebrow, and had said "Don't worry Vakarian. I'll protect you… and your little gun to." She had laughed and that is when their friendship and friendly rivalry had begun.

Garrus, shook his head and took his gun back. "I'll stay up here. I can deal more damage from up top." He turned to look down at her. "And you? You can do what you do best. Go downstairs and rip them apart. Just like old times huh Shepard?"

Shepard shrugged and turned away. "I'll try to leave a couple alive for you. That is just like old times." Turning she signaled Miranda and Za-eed back down the corridor to the stairs. They moved to secure their places behind some half-walls on either side of the bridge as she took her spot behind the wall leading up the stairs. The mechs began to file into view and they readied to take them down.

Her eyes rose briefly to the floor above her head. Garrus was alive and standing right above. There was still some disbelief in her about finding him so easily. She frowned, remembering his slow movements. Not sluggish. Not yet, but he was tired. He'd done better than most on his own. Nearly anybody else would be dead by now. He had held them off for days and the fates had brought her to him. She raised her gun, sighting on the front mech. Nobody was getting past her to Garrus. She had just found him again. She wasn't going to lose him now.

The battle with the mechs was brief. The four of them easily taking them down, but they knew that wasn't all that was coming their way. More mercs stepped into view. Shepard shook her head at their stupidity. After watching their mechs getting taken out they don't even try to find cover. And standing right in back of them was Jaroth. The Salarian leader of the Eclipse.

"I thought Salarians were supposed to be smart?" Miranda asked quietly.

"Maybe this one is a throw-back. " Za-eed replied. His chuckle sounded like rocks in a landslide. "Darwinism in play."

They watched as Jaroth spoke briefly in his mike and a moment later a moving crane moved overhead, dropping a heavy mech right in front Shepard and her team. Jaroth gave them a smile with lots of teeth. They weren't worried though. Not yet.

Garrus warned them through their coms "Watch the heavy mech. That is Jaroth's specialty."

"That will take care of itself." Shepard remarked.

They watched as the heavy mech, a machine used for the heavy lifting, mining or big gun artillery activated and rose to its 15 foot height. With the missile launcher on it's left arm and the heavy machine gun on it's right, heavy mechs could tear through a person's defenses in second, leaving bodies strewn about like a blender gone crazy. Now, Shepard just smiled as the heavy mech turned on it's axis to face Jaroth and his band of mercs and began firing.

Za-eed laughed evily "The surprise on that slippery Salarians face was worth the shocks I got re-wiring that thing. Look at 'em dance!" They watched as the damage dealt to the mercs and Jaroth proved final.

Miranda commented drily "Watching Jaroth get shot off the bridge by his own mech was quite satisfying, in a completely non-sexual way. Which is kind of sad actually."

Their enemies routed, they moved back up the stairs and into the loft area. Shepard needed to talk to Garrus about their next plan of attack.

Garrus was looking out over the bridge and shaking his head. "What is it about you Shepard? It's like the cosmos are moving to align themselves with your plans. You just happen to sabotage a heavy mech that kills the leader of the Eclipse. Next thing I know, you are going to be telling me that you managed to destroy the gun-ship that Tarak is keeping as his ace-in-the-hole or that Garm, the leader of the Blood Pack, is suddenly going be killed by his Vorcha henchman who are then going to shoot themselves because they felt they owed the galaxy a favor."

Shepard just smiled and looked out towards the bridge.

"No." Garrus stated disbelievingly watching her lips curl up at the corners. "You didn't."

"Well, we weren't able to completely destroy Tarak's gun ship. We were able to weaken it though and stop them from fully repairing it. Their mechanic decided it was time for a permanent vacation." She shrugged. "As for Garm... Sorry we'll just have to take him out the old fashioned way." Shepard popped in a new thermal clip.

Alarms suddenly began sounding. Miranda and Za-eed moved to cover the entrance to the hallway and Shepard moved to cover the bridge, looking for infiltrators. "What is going on Garrus?"

Garrus looked down at his omni-tool, drawing up some schematics to the lower levels. "Damn. Well, I guess they had to grow a brain at some point. They've managed to pry open some doors at the lower levels. Those need to be sealed off or we will be over run." He looked over at Shepard. "You three go make sure those doors are sealed off. I'll stay behind and cover your six. We need to get those doors sealed or we won't stand a chance of making it out of here alive."

"Keep one of my team here. Za-eed? You stay behind with Garrus. Miranda and I will go take care of the doors." Shepard ordered. Za-eed nodded and moved towards the stairs to cover the lower level. Shepard and Miranda began making their way towards the door behind the stairs. They needed to move fast to stop the groups that were advancing towards them.

"Shepard." Garrus called down from the loft. "Move fast but come back in one piece okay? I still have questions that need answering and you still owe me from that bet where I killed more husks than you on Feros." Shepard looked up at Garrus. "You have a selective memory Garrus. I won that bet. By two if I remember right."

"Hah." Garrus laughed out loud. "And you say I have a selective memory!"

"Just stay alive Garrus. I didn't come back from the dead just to have you leave the land of the living."

Garrus gave her a cocky smile. "I can't make any promises, but for you I'll give it a shot. Just move your ass."

Shepard smiled as she moved down to the locked door. Time to take care of business…and then…pleasure.


	6. Chapter 5 Garm

**Chapter 5 Garm**

Shepard and Miranda were running back towards Garrus and Za-eed. The doors were sealed and business had been relatively easy to take care of. Killing off mercs was usually pretty simple, just time consuming. Except those damn Vorcha with the fire throwers. Damn, Shepard's hands and face still stung from where some of the flames got through her shields. Watching Miranda use her overload power on them though had been fun. Seeing their packs explode spilling the flammable liquid all over them and their friends had been a sweet revenge, but she could still do without the smell. Fried Vorcha was not a good smell. Ughh.

"Za-eed? Tell Daddy to get off the baby-sitter. Mama's almost home." Shepard said into her com.

"Now that is just disturbing Shepard." Za-eed complained. "Now I have that visual in my head. Not cool." Shepard chuckled as she moved to open the door leading into the lower level of the warehouse. She could see Miranda shaking her head as she moved to lock the final door.

"Shepard? Get back here now! Garm is coming through with the rest of the Blood Pack. We'll try to hold but you need to move your ass now!" Garrus's voice called out through the com as Shepard heard rapid fire gun-fire start cracking in the background. "We're almost there. Less than a minute out."

Miranda finished sealing the door behind them and they started moving towards the stairs. The door that had been sealed on the other side of the lower level slid open and Garm stalked through with his Vorcha sycophants. Garm was a big ass Krogan. Standing close to eight feet tall, his mass was solid and intimidating. Krogan are hard to kill. They were capable of 240 degree perspective allowing them to watch for predators in almost all directions. And if a Krogan charged you, it was the equivalent of being hit by a human tank. Most could only take one hit and they were done for. Garm's maroon colored armor made you think of dried blood which might have been his intent and his boots added an extra six plus inches to his height. But the bright yellow helm on his head that attracted a person's eye up, caused a person to wonder if he was paying attention when he got dressed this morning. Or maybe he's color blind. Wait. Shepard wondered. Can the Krogan see in all colors? Was that called monchromacy or dichrom- she shook her head. Later. Time to focus on Garm and his Blood Pack. Watching Garm walk, Shepard was reminded of old earth movies where men walked on stilts at a carnival. Garm looked as though he could tilt over at any moment. Hmm.

Garm was growling out orders to his men as he pointed them towards the stairs leading up to the loft. "Kill them all. But leave Archangel to me. His blood will be on my dagger!" He smiled and his men laughed. Shepard thought they sounded like a pack of hyenas back on earth. The Vorcha standing next to Garm giggled and raised his weapon and took a step forward. His head exploded in the next instant and they all turned to look up at the loft. Garrus looked down on them and saluted Garm. Another Vorcha in the shadows by the door took aim at Garrus. The biotic pull that Shepard unleashed yanked him off his feet and 10 feet in the area. He lost his weapon and then fell to the ground, dead before he finished bouncing. Shepard smiled innocently at Garm when he turned and bared his teeth at her. "What? He looked like he needed some air."

Laughter came from the loft as Garm turned again to snarl up at Archangel who was smirking down at him. "Hi Garm. Still hiring the stupid ones huh? I guess that does make you look smart." Garrus made pointed glances at the dead Vorcha then grinned down at Garm. "How is that working out for you?"

Shepard rolled her eyes as Garrus's smart mouth drove Garm into a fury. She watched as Garm and the rest of his band of Vorcha hard charged it for the stairs. She and Miranda began firing. The bullets from her assault rifle just seemed to be bouncing right off of Garm. They were barely inflicting any damage. Quickly she switched weapons to shotgun and switched ammo to incinerate and began racing up the stars. She slammed the butt of her shotgun into a Vorcha's knee as she ran past. Miranda finished him off with a well placed shot to the top of the skull. She saw Za-eed get busy with the rest of the Vorcha that had been following Garm. The way he was grinning and calling out insults, she didn't think he needed any help.

As she turned the corner into the loft area a Krogan battle roar sounded. "Shit!" Shepard yelled and charged forward. As she and Miranda ran into the room she saw Garm off to her right firing his shotgun at Garrus who had ducked down behind the couch. Miranda threw a biotic overload at Garm to try and take down his shields as Shepard moved to engage with her shotgun. Garm was getting pissed and turned to charge at her when he was thrown back by Garrus's concussive shot. Miranda hit Garm with another overload the same time as Garrus and Garms' shields stuttered and failed. He struggled to rise and Shepard and Garrus moved in. Garm's flesh sizzled and melted as Shepard's incinerate ammo tore through his armor and Garrus's armor-piercing ammo slowed Garm's regeneration capabilities. Shepard fired a final shot that tore through Garm's chest armor leaving a huge whole where Garm's three hearts should have been.

Shepard turned to look at Garrus "Who gets to pay the cleaning bill?" as Garm's blood spilled out and soaked into the rugs and flooring. "I don't think I should have to as I did most the work here."


	7. Chapter 6 Garrus?

**Chapter 6** **Garrus?**

Miranda asked "Should we make a break for it? With only Tarak and the Blue Suns left this might be the best chance we have."

"Agreed." Garrus said. "You guys go gather up supplies downstairs. I'll finish up here and meet you."

Shepard nodded and they began moving towards the stairs. They moved to the lower level and she and Za-eed began picking up the thermal clips that the mercs had dropped in their haste while Miranda picked up the med-kits that were stashed in strategic positions for fast grabs during a fire fight.

As they finished gathering necessities, the floor began to vibrate and they heard a low rumbling sound. The three of them crouched low with the rifles raised in each direction looking for the source of the sound which escalated, the vibrations causing items on the low tables and shelves to shake. They heard a voice come over a loud speaker "Archangel! You think you can fuck with the Blue Suns! No! You are going to die today Archangel!" As Shepard and her team raced for the stairs, the familiar sound of a machine gun chilled Shepard. As they moved into the room, she could see the A-61 Mantis Gunship that they had crippled earlier hovering outside the warehouse windows looking in over the loft.

Moving low to crouch behind a couch just inside the corridor entrance, Shepard looked to her right and felt her heart stop. "Garrus!" She cried out. He lay on his right side facing away from her in a growing puddle of blue blood. His fingers still grasped the barrel of his sniper rifle. There was no movement and no response to her call. She couldn't tell if he lived or even breathed. She moved to get to him and the machine guns on the gunship began firing again. The bullets whipping past her head, sending pieces of paper, glass and wood flying with the speed of the bullets turning them into deadly projectiles. Even though she wanted to get to Garrus ASAP Shepard knew she needed to deal with the gunship first. She took another quick glance at Garrus and then turned her full focus on the gunship. Most people knew that when you were going up against Shepard, you tried to stay of her radar because if she ever turned her full attention on you, it was like being targeted with a laser-guided missile. Definitely not a good thing if you enjoy breathing. Tarak was about to realize his mistake but he wouldn't live long enough to regret it, she promised herself after another quick glance at Garrus showed no movement. It was time to kill a Batarian bitch.

The A-61 Gunships were the more commonly used gunship in the galaxy. Heavy armor and an eezo-core that allowed the ship to hover and move in every direction made it a great warhorse for battle. It's weaponry consisted of a pair of M350 mass-accelerator machine guns which were currently firing at her, and two missile bays over each wing armed with PKR's or Precision Kill Rockets armed with Inferno ammo. Taking it out was going to be a bitch with that armor and weaponry especially with just three of them. The best way to destroy it would be to try and take out the cockpit. As Shepard signaled her team into position, Blue Suns mercs began rappelling into the open windows. Quickly, Miranda used her warp power and Shepard her shockwave power on the gunship to try and weaken it's armor. Otherwise they would only be wasting their ammo firing on it.

Za-eed focused on the mercs coming in through the windows onto the loft. He began firing incendiary rounds which quickly brought down the enemys' shields and burned through their armor. Their screams of agony rose and fell as each mercenary felt their flesh burn and melt away as the fire ate through leaving nothing but ash.

The gunship rose out of their direct line of site. Shepard followed the sound round to the north side where the gunship dropped into view again and began firing. She signaled Miranda to use overload on the gunship while Shepard again used her power in an effort to further bring down the gunships shielding. Quickly, while their powers re-charged, she and Miranda turned to assist Za-eed in dealing with the mess of Blue Suns mercs coming in through the windows. They were holding their own but with so many mercs coming in they were damn lucky they had re-stocked on ammo and med-gel.

Shepard knew they had to finish this fast. As the gunship moved into visual range at the west windows again she unleashed her shockwave power again and then quickly switched weapons to the Arc projector that had been provided by Cerberus prior to this mission. The Arc projector was an experimental weapon offered to her by Cerberus scientists to try out in a field setting. It would dispense an electrical pulse which would severely deplete or eliminate electrical signals of its victim which meant that taking it up again synthetics, such as the geth, or against a gunship, was a "Hell yeah!" idea for her.

She braced herself and fired. The only down-side to this weapons was the charge time. It took one or two seconds to fully charge which made things kind of dicey for her but when the charge was dispensed, it packed some power. The first blast, hit the cockpit and she saw the anger in the batarian Tarak and the his pilots' face as the effect of the blast took 30% of his gunships functions offline and the machine guns began to stutter irregularly. The second blast caused the gunships' right wing to drop dangerously low as they moved furiously to try and regain control of the gunships. Tarak was looking right at her when she fired for the final time. His mouth opened to hurl obscenities or scream for help, Shepard couldn't tell as the gunship dropped fast and hit the cement hard, flames erupting and encroaching on the walls to the loft as the gunship exploded into shattered pieces of metal.

Shepard felt a large sense of satisfaction as she looked down at the burning rubble but it was short lived. Quickly she holstered the Arc projector and ran back to Garrus, who hadn't moved during the battle. Slowly she knelt next to him and reached out to lay her fingers against his arm to roll him back to her. "Garrus?" she asked softly, hopefully, her heart pounding in her chest. Shepard could feel an emptiness start to roll over her as a sense of loss and futility increased at the lack of response. It felt almost like dying again.


	8. Chapter 7 Who is Frank?

**Chapter 7**

 **Who is Frank?**

It was so quiet. All he could hear was the fading thrum of his hearts as they pushed the blood, he damn well needed, out of the new holes in his body. So this was death, he thought. Not bad. He could do this. And then he tried to take a breath and pain exploded in seemingly never ending waves racing from chest to his fingers and toes. Ok, maybe not. And then she spoke.

"Garrus?"

Just his name. No hard-packed military demand that he get off his ass, no begging, crying and screaming while tears rained down on his face that he had seen in vids that his younger sister had forced him to watch when they were kids. Just his name, with a little bit of hope inflected, said by the woman who has haunted his dreams for close to two and a half years. It was enough. He took another breath and forced his eyes open. He couldn't see anything as the pain threatened to send him back into unconsciousness, which to be frank, he probably wouldn't have minded too much. To be frank, he mused to himself as waves of pain threatened to engulf him. Who was Frank, that everybody wanted to be him? Garrus thought fuzzily. Had to be a human saying. Humans came up with the most interesting sayings like "Buzzkill" or "Salty" or especially "ham-sandwhiched". What the hell did that mean besides well, a ham sandwich? Garrus liked those sayings and threw them randomly into conversations with other Turians that left them staring at him in confusion. Yeah. He enjoyed that.

"Garrus!?" She called to him again. He blinked again and saw the barrel of his sniper rifle on the floor in front of him. Weakly, he reached out and grasped his "Betsy" and pulled her to him. He saw feet move in front of him, and then somebody, a human female in a white uniform knelt next to him. Hands slowly rolled him to his back and breathing suddenly became easier and yet harder at that same time, as blood and what else collected in his throat.

"Hang on Garrus!" _she_ commanded.

"Radio Joker! Make sure they are ready for us!" she ordered the woman, Miranda, he remembered her name was.

"He's not going to make it." A male voice, Za-eed, echoed from the shadows closing in on him. Hell with that he thought. I just found her again. I'm not clocking out without a fight. And he slid into unconsciousness.


	9. Chapter 8 Normandy

**Chapter 8** **Normandy**

Garrus stepped out of the elevator of the new Normandy. Different, yet the same. Even knowing they wouldn't be there, he still looked for the faces of the old crew. Liara, Lt. Alenko, Tali, Pressley, hell he even looked for Wrex. Dr. Chakwas had patched him up and told him that Joker was at the helm, which lifted his mood a lot, but stepping onto the bridge, all the faces he saw were new. All human and all Cerberus. He'd feel the odd man out if he weren't so confident and didn't give a shit about other people's opinions of him, but to be honest, none of the crewmen had given him the cold shoulder. They had all been polite and respectful in directing him to the meeting room where Shepard was reviewing the mission with Jacob Taylor, mission specialist.

Garrus chuckled at the way their eyes lit up and their backs straightened when he mentioned Shepard's name. He could totally understand where they were coming from though. They were under the command of a legend and probably one of the greatest commanders in military history. Being in her presence was like standing by a force of nature, which many people when they were either praising or criticizing, compared her to. It was a type of energy, he thought. A feeling, that if you fight and believe hard enough, everything will turn out as you want it to. She gave you the strength to push beyond your own boundaries of physical and mental strength. She asked what you thought you had to give, and then she asked for more…and you gave it. Because you knew that she would use it for the best of everyone.

As he moved towards the armory, which hopefully led to the com room, he watched the crew move with purpose and a belief. Would it be enough? He wondered watching the crew at their stations. From what Dr. Chakwas had told him, they were headed into a suicide mission. Find a way through the Omega-4 relay, which no ship, has ever done, and returned to tell the tale, was asking a hell of a lot. Fighting the Collectors, an advances species, supposedly associated with the Reapers, the unspoken scourge of the galaxy, on their own turf was like handing a Collector a loaded pistol and hoping you move fast enough to avoid the bullet coming at your head while you were two feet away.

Garrus moved towards the doors leading into the armory, and walked, a bit slower than normal thanks to the still tender wounds the medi-patches covered. He had four new scars on his chest and abdomen and a huge case of road rash on the right side of his face to boast about now. Much of the skin on his jawline was gone, as well as the tribal tattoos that had told other Turians of the proud clan he hailed from. He was lucky considering the rockets that he had faced from the A-61. He should have been dead or at least breathing through a straw, but instead thanks to some new synthetics he was up and walking. He gave a small smile and giggled before he caught himself as a Cerberus crew member walked by and gave him a strange look. He humphed and straighted his spine. Damn. Whatever juice Dr. Chakwas had given him for the pain made him feel really fine.

The doors slid open and closed behind him in a soft shush of sound. He could see several tables with guns and accruements laid out in varying stages of readiness. He liked the old Normandy's set up better. The armory was in the cargo bay. You could just suit up and go. But he hadn't been involved in the design of this ship. More's the pity he thought as a new set of doors opened to let him out into a short corridor, leading to two sets of doors. One had Tech Lab above it. The second one he hoped would lead him to the com room, and Shepard.

The doors slid open and he saw Shepard, standing in a form fitting, black and white Cerberus uniform standing across from a dark-skinned human male, who he assumed was Jacob Taylor. They were both bent over, facing each other over the oblong table, that took up a majority of the room. They had been talking but had ceased upon his entry, and looked at him.

"Tough son of a bitch. I didn't think he would be up so soon." Jacob remarked with some admiration in his tone.

Garrus, looked at Shepard, and cockily said, "Nobody would give me a mirror. How bad is it?"

With laughter in her eyes, her full pink lips, widened into a smile as she threw back at him "Hell Garrus. You were always ugly. Slap some face paint on there, and nobody will know the difference."

Garrus laughed "Ow. Damn it. Don't make me laugh. My face is barely holding together as it is." Then he cocked his hip and rubbed lightly at his new facial scars. "Some women like facial scars." Garrus could see Shepard choking back a laugh. "Of course, most of those women are Krogan." Shepard laughed out loud and shook her head at him, while Taylor chuckled.

As Taylor turned and saluted Shepard, Garrus, saw in Taylor's face, the hope and pride that the other crew had displayed, but also something more. Garrus, was trained in interrogation, thanks to his C-Sec days. He knew how to read body language and right now Taylor's body was saying to Shepard, "Look at me. I'm all male baby. Just say my name and I'm there." Garrus felt heat flash from his head down to his fingertips and he curled his fingers into a fist and tried to push the image of snapping Taylor's neck out of his mind. She wasn't his, he told himself. She would never be his. She is meant for others greater than Garrus. And human. Don't forget human. Like Lt. Kaiden Alenko. Garrus didn't know where Kaiden was now a days, but he and Shepard had a relationship back on the old Normandy or at least Garrus had thought they did. Kaiden had watched Shepard like she was his sun whenever she was in the room and Garrus had understood that. That was how he had looked at her also. There had been nothing obvious in their actions together, but with the way Kaiden seemed to moon over her, and every once in a while Garrus would catch Shepard watching Kaiden in such a way that…hell. Garrus quickly brought his attention back to his present day.

Slowly the red retreated from his eyesight and he watched Taylor move past him and out the doors. He took a deep breath and turned to look at Shepard who, instead of watching Taylors muscled ass leave the room, was leaning back on the table with her arms crossed, regarding him with a half-smile but worry in her eyes.

"Frankly Shepard, I'm more concerned about you. Cerberus? We both saw what they did and the lengths they are willing to go." He said softly, watching her reaction.

The smile left her lips, and he felt sorry for the loss, as seriousness entered her expression. "I know Garrus. I'm walking into hell, and I need somebody I trust at my side."

He felt his back straighten, tightening his wounds but pride filled him. Yeah, he knew exactly what those crewmen felt when she said that. "You realize, that requires me to walk into hell with you right?" She nodded and just watched him.

"Huh. Just like old times right Shepard? I'm fit for duty whenever you need me. Until then I'll be in the forward batteries checking the weapons system." He turned as quickly as his wounds would let him and walked out so fast he nearly ran face first into the doors that almost didn't open fast enough. If he looked at her for one more second with that uniform showing the curves bought with war and hard work, he wouldn't be responsible for his actions.


	10. Chapter 9 And he was

**Chapter 9** **And he was…**

As soon as the doors closed behind Garrus, Shepard let out a deep breath and her body slumped over as the tension her muscles released caused her to collapse on herself. She turned and leaned her hands on the table, her head bent between her shoulders. Breath, she thought. Just breath. That was her mantra for the next minute. Shepherd stood slowly and clenched and relaxed her muscles to relax them enough so she could walk at a normal gate. She needed to get up to her cabin on the top deck.

She had to check her mail, run through the status of her squad and dossiers to see where they were going next, feed her fish, and relax for a bit before the next crisis. She turned and exited the com room into the armory. Jacob looked up and nodded at her before returning to cleaning the SMG in front of him. Shepard continued to the elevator. She saw the crew at their stations and heard the muted talking as readings and directions were given. Kelly, her com's officer was at her station next to the galaxy map, and told Shepherd as she passed by that she had several new messages to look over at her private terminal. Shepard nodded in acknowledgement and moved into the open elevator and hit the key for the top level.

He was alive. She kept repeating this to herself as the seemingly endless elevator ride lifted to the top floor. Shepard kept seeing images of Garrus bleeding out on the floor of that damn warehouse. The struggle to slow the bleeding and get him to the Normandy… her breath shuddered through her and she relaxed her head back. The various species that she had damn near pulled a gun on because they hadn't moved out of their way fast enough, had seen death in her eyes, if they interfered for a micro-second.

The elevator doors opened and let Shepard out into the space before her own cabin doors. Her cabin was the only room at this level. The doors opened at her command and she stepped into blessed quiet. She took a deep breath and tried to relax again but the images of Garrus laying on the table as the med and surgical units moved over his still form; and Dr. Chakwas rushed to grab medi-gel and surgical kits would forever be embedded in her memories.

Shepard stood inside the doorway of her cabin and stared across the room blankly. The belief that Garrus would die, had drained her. It had left an empty well in her, that she knew from experience, after losing her parents and friends on Mindoir, during the Batarian raids, would only be filled by a rage that she would have used on every damn merc on Omega if Garrus had died. Even if that meant destroying the station. Then she would have turned it on the Collector's.

But she didn't need to because he was alive, she reminded herself as she moved to look into the huge fish tank that was embedded in the port bulkhead of her room, and watched as the small and sleek yellow and black Thessia Sun Fish and the larger blue Prejek Paddle fish swam peacefully through the clear blue waters. She pushed the feeder button and washed them pick up speed as they swam up towards the surface to get the choice bits of food before the others. Shepard smiled softly and let their quick graceful movements further relax her. But she couldn't stay there forever, no matter how much she might want to watch the beautiful creatures float in their peaceful world.

Garrus was alive. Yeah, he was marked up some, but still his cocky, sarcastic, willing to die for a good time, self. Only Garrus, could make her smile as much as he did. Shepard hadn't had a lot to smile about in her life. Her childhood was destroyed as she watched from her hiding place as her parents were burned to ash by Batarians slavers. Their screams…No, she closed her eyes tightly, pushing the memories back. Not going there.

She turned and moved to her computer but the memories kept pushing to the forefront of her brain. Shepard remembered the struggle to survive after the attack. The Alliance had come, too late, but they had come. Orphanages and foster homes followed. Some of them good. Some of them not so good, but none of them had been able to deal with her rage. She had been a scrapper. Willing to fight anyone if they tempted her to, and some of the other foster kids had known that, and provoked it. So no, she didn't stay too long anywhere. Until retired marine Gunnery Sergeant Killian took her in hand. Alliance and marine to the core, he took her rage and taught her how to channel it into stopping what had happened to her from happening to anyone else. From then on, she fought for justice and for the innocent so following his footsteps and joining the Alliance had been an obvious step.

Shepard stared blankly at the screen for a moment. Happiness and laughter didn't really find her that often. Usually it was trouble that found her first. The thresher maw, Eden Prime, Sovereign and now the Collector's. Yeah, she sighed and pulled up her mail on the screen, she and trouble had a very intimate relationship.

As she began going through her mail, she thought about having had survived her family's death, but thinking about a future without Garrus…no. She wouldn't have survived that and she would have taken a lot of the galaxy with her. She felt a low growl rise in her throat at the thought of Garrus's laughter inducing remarks being gone from this universe. His swagger and his willingness to voice his disagreement to his superiors and take their punishment anyway had impressed her and made her laugh at the same time. He had her back from the beginning. Sometimes her methods didn't coincide with his but he still supported her.

She let out a chuckle as she remembered the inventive curses he threw at her whenever she had driven the Mako on a mission. Yeah, she was pretty gungho about taking on anything in that earthbound battleship but sometimes she went the crazy way just to hear Garrus let out those little girl screams that he later absolutely refuted had come from him. He usually just tried to blame it on whoever else was with them but he had to stop doing that after trying to blame the krogan Wrex, which nobody had bought. Shepard began giggling as tears came to her eyes as she remembered that she had learned some very interesting Turian curse words on those missions.

So hell yes, she would have killed as many Reapers, mercs, or whoever got into her way, as it took to fill that void Garrus' death would have left before she went to the abyss. He had made her laugh and smile where few others had. But she wouldn't have to, she chanted her mantra under her breath because Garrus was alive.

She read the congratulations message from the Illusive Man on convincing Archangel to join the team. Shepard felt the tension begin to rise again and forced it back. There was nothing she could do about the Illusive Man at this time. She knew that he couldn't be trusted beyond this mission to destroy the Collector's, but that was for another day. She continued to read through her messages quickly before slowing at one that caught her attention. It was from Nalah Butler, the attention line said "Take care of Garrus".

Shepard clicked the message open and saw that Nalah had been the wife of one of Garrus' old team mates. Shepard had the brief version of why Garrus had been going bullet to bullet with the merc packs, but Nalah filled in a couple of spaces for her. Nalah wrote that Garrus felt guilty over his team's murders but he didn't need to be. Garrus had made Nalah's husband proud of what he was doing and he died for a greater cause but Garrus still felt he was responsible for what had happened.

Shepard sat back and contemplated what she knew of Garrus and his team's history at Omega. She knew Garrus. Knew that he was always searching for a way to right the wrongs but sometimes she thought he was living in the wrong era. He should have been a sheriff or a Texas Ranger back in old west Earth age where the law is what you made it and red tape was there to hang somebody with but was easily pushed aside for justice. Of course, she mused, then he would have been human too. That would have made having a relationship with him easier. There were still a lot of hard feelings between humans and turians and she was no longer a faceless human soldier. She sighed and rolled her shoulders and continued to read the message. A surprised smile lit her face as Nalah asked and actually ordered Shepard to take care of Garrus and try to ease his guilt.

Shepard leaned back in the chair again and chuckled. She didn't have any knowledge about a Turian-Human relationship. She didn't know if they even existed and knowing Turians and their sometimes prissy, my way or the highway, attitude she thought they might be few and far between. Again, Shepard glanced over the message. Hmmm. Her smile widened and she laughed out loud. She said to the empty room, "Never let it be said that I don't follow orders." She chuckled and returned to her computer. Back to trying to save the galaxy. Again.


	11. Chapter 10 And she was

**A/N: Sorry this has taken a bit. Been so freaking busy at work but I've just been itching to get back to my story. I hope you all are liking it! Thanks to the faves and followers! Any reviews are greatly welcomed so if you got a moment let me know please! This chapter is Garrus' reaction to Shepard's return and a look into their history and meeting. Hope you like!**

 **Chapter 10**

 **And she was…**

Garrus, let out at groan, as the doors to the gun battery slid closed behind him. He had run out of there like a damn Salarian faced with a Rachni. He shook his head and began pacing back and forth in the small space in front of the console. He could feel tightness in his jaw and neck. The synthetics Dr. Chakwas had used to make sure he retained full functionality were still a new sensation to him. Overtime he knew he would grow used to them but now in his agitated state they were like a buzzing annoyance.

"Idiot!" He snarled at himself, wanting to pound his head into something until he knocked some sense, and courage, back into himself. His mandibles fluttered in agitation, pulling at his new scars, as he muttered to himself. He'd faced down husks, the geth, and three of the baddest merc bands in the terminus system. He'd faced his own death many times and had scars that proved he wasn't afraid to walk into the line of fire, but now, when faced with being alone with one female, he ran, "like a girl" the humans would say.

He leaned against the weapons bench and stared down at his M-97 Viper sniper rifle. He reached out and ran his finger along the barrel, almost lovingly. He'd taken hundreds of lives with this gun. Some of them he felt nothing but satisfaction for killing. Others he felt…not regret…if he killed somebody they deserved it. So no, he felt no regret, but he felt frustration he guessed. Frustrated that they had put themselves in that position, and some anger as well, for putting him in the place where he had to kill them. His old military commander had once told him that if he was going to hesitate, don't bother putting his eye to the scope, and he had followed that old bastard's advice to this day. But seeing her face in his scope had caused him to catch his breath and to hesitate. Shepard was alive.

Garrus pushed up from the bench almost violently and continued to pace. Shepard was alive. He was still disbelieving even having seen her, and fought with her. She still kicked ass. He had always loved that about her. She went into a situation and if she couldn't diffuse it with some well chosen words, then she went to option B. No hesitation, no pause. She gave you the chance to step back and out of her way. If you didn't, well, you better had made your peace with whatever gods you prayed to because you would be seeing them in the next couple of seconds.

When she had told Garm that his vorcha had needed some air after killing him, she did so calmly and with such innocence in her expression that even now Garrus chuckled. Her eyes had widened just that little bit when she spoke to Garm, that she made it sound completely plausable. Garrus laughed out loud, remembering Garm's face as he stared at this diminutive human female that had killed one of his mercenaries like she had been picking a flower. Yeah, she still had it.

Garrus thought back to when he had first seen Shepard. He had been arguing with his superior to try and get more time to find evidence against Saren. He knew it existed but with the short amount of time the Council had given him, finding evidence against a spectre such as Saren, was like finding a fertile Krogan male on Tuchanka. Damn near impossible. His superior had refused and Garrus had turned in frustration and saw a small group of humans, headed by a female standing there watching him. He looked at the human female and had wondered why she was suddenly finding access to the highest levels of the citadel.

She hadn't looked like much he had thought. About 5'8, maybe 170 pounds with the armor and weapons on her. Her…hair…it had taken a moment to remember that was what it was called, was pulled back from her face in some kind of knot at that back of her skull. It was a blood-red color that should have clashed with her golden toned skin but instead the colors complemented each other. But it was her eyes that damn near stopped him in his tracks as he moved towards her. They were a pale silver gray that seemed to slice through the façade he projected to the world and exposed his innermost self to her. He had shivered slightly and then caught himself in surprise.

His estimation of the danger she might pose rose as he studied how she moved easily towards him. The way she carried herself said she could handle herself in a fight. Her eyes moving quickly around the area, and he knew she had catalogued every person around them, as well as the exits and places to retreat behind in a fire fight. Yeah, she was soldier through and through, and somebody to watch.

Garrus took a seat by his weapons bench on the Normandy. He had watched her, oh yes. He watched her fight a foe never before seen, with technology and powers that they couldn't even grasp yet, with little to no support from her superiors. Not because it was her orders, but because it was who she was. She had known they were fighting against damn near impossible odds, but still she had fought. Just like today. Facing dozens of blood thirsty mercenaries, she had fought and won.

Garrus shook his head, trying to pull himself back into the present and turned to his rifle and began dismantling it. This was a task he could do in his sleep so his brain easily slipped back to Shepard. He still remembered the day when he realized his feelings for her had changed. When he had seen Shepard, not just Commander Shepard.

Oh, he had known her stats. He had looked her up right after their initial meeting. Her full name was Sabria Athens Shepard. He had looked up what her names had meant, merely out of curiosity about humans naming their prodigy, or so he had told himself at the time. _Sabria_ meant "she who cuts down with a sword" and Athens referred to an ancient Greek city dedicated to the goddess of war and strategy. He had read about the slavers killing her parents and about her squad being killed at Akuze, leaving her the only known survivor. He hadn't seen her in those names at the time, but now he did. She was a true leader. He had grown cynical and skeptical of his superiors motives in C-Sec. Too often he had seen justice thrown aside for expediency or profit. Becoming a member of Shepards' crew had shown him what a true leader was. She was his commander. The only one he had ever truly accepted as such since he had left the military.

He had realized he had loved her when they had killed Dr. Salion, Garrus' nemisis, after they had tracked him to his ship. Dr. Salion had been using people as living test tubes to grow extra organs that he sold at a huge profit. The people had suffered greatly, sometimes dying in agony. Dr. Salion had escaped justice because C-Sec had refused to try and capture his ship when he had left the docking bay, citing danger to the public as their reason. That had always pissed Garrus off and when he had mentioned it to Shepard, he had no real hopes of gaining her assistance. None of his superiors back in C-Sec had cared enough to follow his leads or launch their own investigations, so when Shepard had said she would plot a course if he gave her coordinates, he had been skeptical. At first he thought she was just mouthing platitudes to gain his assistance in their mission against Saren, but then she had followed through with her word. They had found Dr. Salion but then Shepard had given Salion the opportunity to be charged with his crimes in court. Garrus had jerked in shock, thinking he had been betrayed again. Then Salion had laughed and drawn a gun to fire at them. A swift shot to the frontal lobe from Shephard and Salion lay among the corpses of his experiments. A fitting end Garrus had thought.

Garrus had asked Shepard sarcastically "Why give him the opportunity for a court trial if we are only going to kill him anyway?" He still remembered the calm in her silver eyes as she looked at him after putting her pistol away.

"We can't control what other people do, Garrus, but we can control the way we react." She said.

Looking at her in that moment, he felt like he could drown quiet happily in the silver pools of her eyes. And as he was a turian and had no swimming skills at all, that would most definitely happen. He had realized that being in her presence brought him a purpose and a peace that he hadn't found in all of his days. At that moment, he knew, he had fallen in love. With a human. Hell, he had thought. His dad would have kittens, as the humans said. Garrus knew he couldn't help what he felt but he also knew nothing would come of it. First they were heading into a fight that they had a high possibility of dying from and second, she was Commander Shepard, a human soldier in the Alliance and the first human spectre. She was way above his pay grade and could probably have anyone that she wanted. She had beauty, brains and guts. And then she had died.

Garrus' hands tightened on his rifle as he relived that day. Life after lost color, lost meaning for him when she had been killed. After they had destroyed Sovereign, they had flown out on a mission to find a way to stop the reapers and had been attacked. As his commander, she had ordered him into an escape pod, while she went to save Joker, the talented but stubborn as a Krogan going after a Rachni drone, pilot determined to save a dying and disintegrating ship. He should have stayed with her then. He had known it then and he knew it now. If he had stayed he might have saved her, but he hadn't… Instead he had watched from the tiny window in the escape pod as it flew to the spirits knew where, he saw the Normandy riddled with small explosions along the hull. He watched tensely as pieces of the hull were thrown violently into the once empty vacuum of space. The once great ship rocked like a husk in its' final throes of death.

Garrus remembered watching a final escape pod leave the exploding skeleton that used to be the Normandy. He remembered the rush of relief at seeing the tiny flares of its' thrusters, and then the disbelief and pain that slammed into his chest, when it was found out that Shepard wasn't in it. She had sacrificed herself so Joker was saved. Garrus remembered his rage at Joker for making Shepard stay behind to save his ass. He had been moving with a single purpose toward the Normandy's ex-pilot when he had taken a good look at Joker's face. Joker's eyes usually had a cynical gleam to them as he looked out at the world and found it wanting. Joker always knew there was another angle, a hidden agenda and he had no problem expressing his opinion with the rest of the world.

Garrus had been shocked when he had first heard Joker commenting sarcastically on Shepards actions during a mission that had ended with the Normandy being singed by lava. You just didn't do that as a subordinate. Turian society made it clear you didn't have to like the orders but you did them anyway without comment or backtalk. That was not a way to rise in the meritocracy. Garrus had been waiting for Shepard to set Joker down hard but she had just laughed and promised to try and not do that again in the future. He had realized then how different she was in methodology from any other commander he had served, and he had liked it.

The day she had died, the shock and the guilt that had turned Joker's eyes like barren desert was obvious to everyone. He just kept saying "She was right there.." over and over again. Garrus had felt his rage turn to ash in his mouth as he realized she was gone and ripping Joker to shreds wouldn't bring back his commander. The woman that he had watched over from afar, who he had seen give everything to the galaxy and had lead them all to victory in the final battle of the Citadel. That small figure, barely standing to his shoulder, was filled with the will and determination of a thousand Turians, was gone. Just like that.

And now, after two years of mourning, of trying to fight a losing battle on his own, she had returned. The crew of the Normandy had separated. No longer held together by the belief of their Commander, they had drifted away from each other. Indeed, he didn't even know where anybody else was. But that didn't matter right now Garrus thought as he pulled the gun oil closer to him. She was here. She was alive. And now he had a purpose again. Maybe someday he would find that peace.

Garrus shifted in an attempt to ease the pain that was starting to stab through his ribs. The pain meds were starting to wear off slightly and he could tell the majority of the right side of his body had taken some damage. His hip and shoulder were beginning to protest his abuse and Garrus knew he'd need to take that next dose of medicine Dr. Chakwas had prescribed soon. He didn't like pain meds. As a turian he was raised to accept that they would feel pain and to become accustomed to it, especially during active fighting; but if he was going to be of any use to Shepard he needed to get back on his feet as soon as possible and this second dose would greatly aid in his healing. He didn't want her going on a mission with only Cerberus and Zaa-eed watching her back. He didn't trust them, especially not with her and especially not on Omega where every bounty hunter is going to be eye-balling her. She needed him at her six and this time he was staying there, he didn't give a damn what order she gave.

This second dose was going to knock him out cold. Garrus took a look around the battery and saw a long low lying bench on the wall across from the weapon bench. It would be hard and uncomfortable especially with his wounds but once he took the meds he doubted he would feel anything. Especially as his body was still recovering from the days of the merc onslaught on Omega. Turians were taught to sleep anywhere. They needed to be able to acclimate to the changing conditions that they fought in. When they weren't on the battlefield they had specially formulated pillows for their carapace but it looks like that would have to wait until another…he came to an immediate standing attention as the wall above the bench shifted and he watched as the wall shifted and recessed back further leaving enough room to easily house his tall, lean frame upon the soft mattress that sat there. The bedding was pretty damn luxurious compared to his own on Omega or even back home on Palaven. A deep shimmering ocean blue with gold rope along the edges, the coverlet was a fluffy cotton filled with down feathers from a bird on earth. The sheets were made of a special non-allergenic fabric that was derived from a reed found on Dekunna, the Elcor homeworld. Garrus knew the cost of these textiles especially as they had to be specially cleaned and made for non-human occupants. That Cerberus had them didn't surprise him all that much, but that they were allowing him, an alien and mercenary use them is what had him suspicious.

Garrus' eyes flickered as another section of the wall slid open and revealed several large, fluffy pillows. One of them was made specifically for the turian physique. Unease wound it's way through his aching body bringing a battle ready hardness to his muscled frame. His head tilted almost birdlike as he examined all the shadows and corners suspiciously. He was going to have to do a sweep for bugs. He knew he wouldn't be able to sleep until he did so. Even drugged up. As he started to bend to check under the weapons bench a female voice came over the loudspeaker.

"Lt. Vakarian?"

Garrus looked too the ceiling, his eyes wandering over the tiles slowly before he drawled "Yes?"

"I hope your accommodations are satisfactory."

Garrus's head tilted again as he tried to get a handle on the voice. Every once in a while there was an inflection that sounded almost human but then it would return to an almost synthetic monotone. Turian's hearing was extremely accurate and detailed. If he wanted he could hear a leaf fall or his enemy's heartbeat but that would take concentration his battered body just couldn't handle right now. Instead he focused on the question.

"They are quite satisfactory thank you. In fact I have never seen such luxury before especially on a warship and especially on a human warship where a turian would be sleeping. Were you expecting a turian to be taking over these quarters?" he inquired casually.

"Indeed we did think we would have a turian on board but we had made other arrangements for quarters for him. Once the commander realized it was you she made your current accommodations while you were in medbay. She was very specific in what she wanted for your bedding and we were lucky that a new "shipment" had arrived at Omega's Market. Marsh was very accommodating in his pricing once the Commander spoke to him privately. Commander Shepard also though you would be most comfortable staying in the battery so Gabby and Kenneth worked fast to install the recessed bedroom. They said to let you know that they hope it is comfortable for you and if there is anything you wish to change, just let them know and they will work to get it done."

"Umm…tell them thank you and I will do that but it looks quite comfortable as it is." Garrus let the tension drain out of his body as he realized Shepard had done this for him and it wasn't some elaborate twisted plan by Cerberus. "May I ask who you are?"

"Of course. I am Edi. I am the Normandy's AI." She said as though she hadn't dropped a bomb in his lap.

Garrus tensed all over again. AI's were not necessarily the most stable thing to have around and to have it in charge of the ship that was he and Shepard were now riding in made adrenaline crash through his body in panic before he took a breath and focused on the facts. Shepard was alive and had been commanding this ship for weeks now. Joker was on board and was piloting. Chakwas, the most reality based and serene person he had met outside of his people's mystics served on board. Everybody was alive. He was alive. He let out a breath and decided acceptance was key in this situation. He could interrogate Shepard after he finished his meltdown. "Indeed. Well…it's a pleasure to meet you Edi." Garrus turned to again begin looking for the bugs that had to be planted in his station when Edi again spoke.

"It is not necessary to search for any listening devices Lt. Vakarian."

"While I appreciate everything Edi, I know well Cerberus trustworthiness. Especially in situations involving aliens." Garrus snarked a little as he continued to search under his weapons bench.

"While I understand your reservations towards the Cerberus organization Lt. Vakarian that is not what I meant. Commander Shepard herself personally scanned and searched these quarters while you recovered from your surgeries. She removed 5 devices and destroyed 7 others. She said to have you comm her when you asked."

Garrus rose to his full height again. "Oh." He hit the com button on his omnitool for Shepard.

"Garrus." Her husky voice massaged his ears. "Your room is as clean. Get some rest and we'll talk later."

Garrus had to clear his throat. "Ah, thanks Shepard. I'll do that."

"Good. Sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite." She almost sang.

"Umm…What?" he asked in confusion.

"It's just a human saying." She chuckled. "Get some shuteye Garrus. See you when you're solid." Shepard said before ending the transmission.

Garrus stared in glazed eye confusion at his omni-tool. The pain was starting to rise again. Soon it would swallow him. He needed to take his meds and lay down before he collapsed. As quickly as his sore and protesting body allowed him, he removed his armor leaving only his under armor uniform. This would serve as his sleepwear for tonight. He walked over to the bed and sat down, feeling himself sink into the mattress. He took the second dose of meds that Chakwas had given him from its' case and injected into his thigh muscle through his suit. Almost immediately he felt the effects of the meds as sleep began to lay claim to the wasteland he had become since Shepard's death. Yet now, there was a difference. She was alive. He slowly leaned back onto the turian pillow that supported his neck and allowed him to lay back at a comfortable angle rather than a typical bed used by humans, asaris and salarians. Those beds left him stiff and feeling twice his age the next morning and put a painful crick in his neck. But this…ahhhh. He sighed as the relaxants in the injection began to take affect. His eyes roamed aimlessly around the bed area as his blinks became longer and longer. His fingers tightened and released on the soft warmth of the comforting blue of his blanket. His mind began to wander and pictures began to form and dissipate. Omega. His team. His father. Shepard. Her face came into his mind and stayed. She was his center, the bedrock that his life was now based on. Alive. He was hers now. She might never be his, in fact there was no might about it. She **would** never be his, but he would always be hers. His mind stalled a second as he remembered the care Edi had said Shepard had taken in choosing his bedding and the lengths she had gone to for his security. She had known he would check. Given his training and background there wasn't any doubt. Maybe…Garrus gave a weak chuckle at fate. His father couldn't stand humans or spectres. Now his son belonged to one in every way. Shepard. The spirits had to be laughing at the irony Garrus thought as his body was released into welcome sleep.


End file.
